A path in which Nancy Pelosi becomes
Speaker of the House and then President of the United States is described
by Atty. Tony Bothwell.“If enough
enlightened members are elected to the House and Senate in the November
2006 elections,” he says, “it might be possible to remove President
Bush and Vice President Cheney from office, with Speaker Pelosi next
in line for the presidency.”Some background:

Jan. 18, 2003 – Former
Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark,
addressing an antiwar rally in Washington,
called for impeachment of President George
Bush, Vice President Dick
Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and then-Atty. Gen. John
Ashcroft (later updated to name Atty. Gen. Alberto
Gonzales).

Nov.
11, 2005 – At GeorgetownUniversityLawCenter
in Washington, D.C.,
Atty. Tony Bothwell of San Francisco conferred with
Prof. Robert F. Drinan, S.J.
concerning legal remedies for illegal acts of Bush and Cheney.Drinan, D-Mass., was a member of the House Judiciary
Committee in 1974 when it voted articles of impeachment against President Nixon.

Historical precedent

Dec.
7 – The Bothwell Letter, vol.
VII, no. 3, published excerpts from “Obstruction of Justice,” “Abuse
of Power” and “Contempt of Congress” articles the Judiciary Committee
voted against Nixon – precedent for impeachment of Bush and Cheney.The newsletter listed 12 items of Bush/Cheney misconduct that
may be impeachable, e.g.:
failure to act on pre-9/11 warnings; outing of a Central
Intelligence Agency covert agent; and violation of treaties on conduct
of war and treatment of prisoners.It
compared recent events to Vietnam
and Watergate, and quoted former Nuremberg
prosecutors comparing post-9/11 America
to 1930s Germany.

Dec.
16 - The New York Times revealed
Bush’s use of the National Security
Agency to conduct warrantless domestic suveillance.

Dec.
18 – Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.,
introduced H.Res. 365, to create a select committee to investigate war
crimes, manipulation of intelligence, and retaliation against
critics, and to make recommendations regarding possible grounds for
impeachment.

Dec.
20 – In a letter to House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., Bothwell, citing illegal surveillance and other
offenses, said the Judiciary Committee should be urged to draft articles
of impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

Jan.
5, 2006 – Pelosi announced she would conduct a public meeting on national
security issues Jan. 14 at San Francisco’s
MarinaMiddle School.

Spontaneous eruption

Jan.
14 – In Pelosi’s meeting, attended by more than 1,000 constituents,
an aide read questions aloud.Question
no. 2:“Attorney Tony Bothwell
writes, ‘President Bush withdrew military forces needed in Afghanistan,
withheld protective armor needed by U.S.
troops in Iraq, and
committed innumerable violations of international law, the Constitution
and statutes of the United
States.Do these not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors…”
– at which point the audience spontaneously erupted into sustained cheers,
applause and chants of “Impeach Bush now!” When
the auditorium and TV monitor rooms eventually quieted, Pelosi said
all who feel that way should devote energies to electing a Democratic-majority
House in 2006.

Later in Pelosi’s Jan. 14 meeting,
another attorney’s question was read aloud, suggesting Bush’s impeachment
because “our form of government is at stake.”This touched off another outburst of extended cheering, applause,
and shouts of “Bush should go to jail!” and “Felony indictment!”Pelosi again responded by urging the election
of a Democratic Congress.

Answering other questions, Pelosi said
that she and most House Democrats back the proposal by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., for U.S. military
withdrawal from Iraq; that it would be “dereliction of duty” for Congress
to fail to investigate Bush’s actions regarding NSA domestic surveillance;
and that the current GOP-run Congress is “the most closed and therefore
corrupt” in history.

The impeachment uproar in Pelosi’s meeting,
broadcast on CSPAN, sparked supportive e-mails from across the nation.

Jan.
16 – Former Vice President Al
Gore, in a speech in Washington,
said Bush was “breaking the law repeatedly and persistently.”Answering ABC News questions afterwards, he
said lawless domestic spying may be an impeachable offense, as it was
in the Nixon case.

Presidential succssion

Apr.
3 – “If Democrats win control of Congress, Pelosi becomes Speaker of
the House,” Bothwell says.“Democratic
control of the Judiciary Committee would improve the climate for possible
impeachment of Bush and Cheney.If
Bush is impeached, Cheney would become President; then, under the 25th
Amendment, President Cheney would nominate a Vice President, subject
to the House and Senate confirmation.But if Bush and Cheney both are impeached by the House, tried
jointly by the Senate, and both found guilty in one Senate roll call,
then both offices would become vacant.”

Impeachment and removal are authorized
by the Constitution, Art. II, sect. 4, and the “removal…both of the
President and Vice President” is contemplated in Art. II, sect. 1(6).The House impeaches by majority, Const., Art.
1, sect. 2(5); the Senate convicts by two-thirds vote, Art. I, sect.
3(5).

Under the Presidential Succession Act
of 1947, 3 U.S.C. §19, if the presidency
and vice presidency both become vacant, the Speaker of the House automatically
becomes President.

[2]
Whistleblower stopped carcinogen hazard in

Napa wine country drinking
water supplies

A water operations supervisorexperienced retaliation after complaining
that a City of Napa manager,
who did not have a water plant operator’s license, tampered with chemical
levels in public drinking water supplies.A lawsuit filed Mar. 9 in U.S. District Court
in San Francisco says the unlicensed manager ordered a plant operator
to set chemical levels causing water taste and odor problems and possible
carcinogens in the drinking water.The
supervisor who complained about and corrected the chemical hazard, Turan Ramadan, is an internationally recognized authority on water
operations management.The suit
says Ramadan has been harassed because he blew the whistle on the Oct. 15, 2003 water tampering incident and because
of his Turkish Cypriot Muslim heritage.According to the suit, retaliation for disclosing misconduct
violated Ramadan’s First Amendment free speech rights, and ethnic discrimination
violated state and federal civil rights laws and standards of the International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.Ramadan is represented by San Francisco attorneys Rey Hassan and Tony
Bothwell.The City of Napa Water
Department supplies public drinking water to about 82,000 residents
of Napa, Calistoga, St. Helena, AmericanCanyon
and Yountville.

[3]
Executives who ran a polluting oil refinery

…
hear no evil, see no evil, speak
no evil

Oil company executives testified in depositions
taken by Atty. Tony Bothwell in Billings,
Mont. and Minneapolis, Minn.,
Mar. 14-17.Bothwell represents
an engineer forced out of his job after he discovered, and refused to
help cover up, evidence of intentional violation of sulfur dioxide emission
limits at an oil refinery.Atty.
Shane McGovern of the Matlovich
and Keller law firm in Billings
is local counsel.The Cenex refinery, in Laurel, Mont.,
is owned by CHS, Inc., a
St. Paul-based Fortune 500 conglomerate.Senior Vice President and Legal Counsel David Kastelic testified he didn’t know it’s against the law for a
refinery to violate state permit limits and federal environmental regulations.Corporate Environmental Affairs Director Todd
King testified he did not take part in a discussion about allegations
of criminal violation of Environmental Protection Agency regulations
– but revised his answer when shown a copy of his meeting notes.Sulfur dioxide pollution of the atmosphere causes lung disease.

[4]
Countrywide Bank, RE/MAX, Financial Title

named
in Sacramento
real estate lawsuit

A complaint filed in superior court in
Sacramento charges that a
dozen defendants took part in a complex conspiracy that defrauded nine
homebuyers.The 99-page complaint
alleges:

Unlicensed
real estate and mortgage representatives promised to help arrange financing
but instead used the plaintiffs’ good names to tie up property for other
purposes.Four of the plaintiffs later found out that
their signatures were forged on real estate transaction documents.Lenders, without even doing credit checks, told
well-qualified buyers they did not qualify for loans.Financial
Title Co. failed to return a rejected buyer’s deposit.An unlicensed agent used forged documents to
substitute herself in as the purchaser of a home.She took another plaintiff’s identity and property
and used his credit to arrange loans for other alleged conspirators.Countrywide
Bank used aggressive collection tactics against a plaintiff even
after it had learned that he was a fraud victim who did not owe the
debt on which the bank was attempting to collect.A RE/MAX agent even threatened
to have one of the plaintiffs deported on trumped-up charges if he did
not accept a settlement offer.The
plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Rey Hassan and Tony Bothwell.

[5]LosBanosSchool District
employee wins

a
court ruling on sexual harassment claim

Lawyers representing the plaintiff in
a sexual harassment case prevailed in a ruling by a federal magistrate
judge in Fresno, rejecting an attempt by the LosBanosUnifiedSchool District
to have the case thrown out.A
57-page order by Judge Sandra M. Snyder means a jury can decide whether
the school district failed to take corrective action when the plaintiff
complained she was sexually harassed by her supervisor.Though the order bars a harassment claim against the supervisor
under state law, it leaves for jurors to decide:Is the district liable for the alleged sexual harassment that
is prohibited by federal law?Did
the district, in violation of state and federal law, retaliate against
the plaintiff for protesting the harassment?The order, denying in part the distict’s summary judgment motion,
was dated Feb. 16.The plaintiff,
an employee of the school district, is represented by Attys. Rey
Hassan and Tony Bothwell
of San Francisco and Tom
Sharpe of Fresno.

Law Offices of Anthony P. X. Bothwell
and associates have helped clients win monetary awards against federal,
state and local government agencies and private-sector businesses, in
various discrimination and whistleblower retaliation cases.Tony Bothwell has testified as an expert witness
on legal ethics issues in cases in San Francisco
and Los Angeles.

[6]
Lawyers tell about getting government records

A panel of California
attorneys presented a Freedom of Information Act seminar Mar. 4 at the
Public Interest Environmental Law Conference, hosted by University of Oregon School of Law in Eugene.Loulena
Miles, staff attorney for Livermore-based Tri-Valley
CARES, told how the Bush administration has curbed public access
to government records.Michael Veiluva of the Walnut Creek
law firm of Alborg,
Veiluva & Epstein cited court decisions favoring disclosure.Tony Bothwell, adjunct professor at Kennedy School of Law, told of extracting
data from the CIA and other agencies, and about ways of avoiding costs
and recovering fees in FOIA cases.An
audience member, Dave Bahr,
staff attorney in the Eugene office of
the WesternEnvironmentalLawCenter,
noted that courts sometimes reexamine, de
novo, whether an agency should have made a requestor pay for public
records.

[7]
Book reviews are available on-line

Fred Bothwell III of Georgetown, Tex.,
an IBM manager and former commanding officer of a training unit at the
U.S. Military Academy, has published incisive book reviews available
on line.His review of The Da Vinci Code (“pedestrian…overwrought”) is at www.epinions.com/content_106633334404.His review of Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point (“comprehensive portrait…a
must read”) is seen at www.epinions.com/content_109732138628.

[8]
Antiterror strategy envisioned at West Point

In September 2001, soon after
the 9/11 attacks, a cadet in a classroom at the U.S. Military Academy
asked whether the “endstate” of U.S. antiterror policy should
be “eradication, containment, or some other option?” The
professor, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, U.S.A. ret., answered, “There
will be no endstate….” McCaffrey, who was drug czar in the
Clinton administration, explained:

[W]e will, if successful, manage
this chronic threat to our survival, economy, and self-confidence
by dramatically lowering the risk. We will build a series of defensive
programs that will make a multiple order of magnitude increase in
our day-to-day security. Second, we will form a coalition based on
common danger. Much of the globe will join us to leverage foreign
intelligence services and security forces to fight these FTOs [foreign
terrorist organizations] forward in the battle area. Finally, we will
at last take the gloves off and use integrated military power to find,
fix, and destroy these organizations.

We are going to disrupt these
people through pre-emptive attack. We will deceive them, we will run
psyops on them.... [A]t selected points and times they will be killed
suddenly, in significant numbers, and without warning. Tomahawk missiles,
2000 lb. laser guided weapons dropped from B-2s or F-22s at very high
altitude, remote-control booby traps, blackmail, and at places...small
groups of soldiers or Seals will appear in total darkness ...blow
down the doors and kill them at close range with automatic weapons
and hand grenades. We will find their money and freeze it. We will
arrest their front agents. We will operate against their recruiting
and transportation functions. We will locate their training areas
and surveill or mine them. We will isolate them from their families.
We will try to dominate their communication function and alternately
listen, jam, or spoof it. We will make their couriers disappear. If
we can find out how they eat, or play, or receive rewards, or where
they sleep...we will go there and kill them by surprise.

The military component will
be a supporting but lesser aspect of a strategy that will be based
fundamentally on diplomatic and economic leverage to compel cooperation
with international law. Of prime importance, we must reduce the environmental
factors that feed this type of extremist madness.... [F]oreign aid
must be dramatically increased to address the misery and poverty of
the Palestinians, the Afghans, the Sudanese and others.

Bill
of Rights

We must also not be unwilling
to confront the state sponsors of terror...Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Cuba,
North Korea....none can be allowed to provide the base for another
sickening strike against our civilian population or our allies. Conventional
military power will be used at the end of the day to place at risk
those states who present a direct threat to our security. If deterrence
does not work with coherent political and economic measures in support
of a threat capability...then their political will must be shattered
with overwhelming violence directed at their armed forces and the
political decision-makers.The big challenge will be to
organize America to protect our transportation, our economic activity,
our entertainment...etc., with minimal invasion of our privacy and
our free movement. We will constrain domestic law enforcement through
the protection of our judicial system. We will ensure the unfettered
operation of a free press. We will have to be zealous to protect the
Bill of Rights and the dignity and safety of foreigners living among
us during this war. We can do all of this. We have no option. The
American people will depend on you and your fellow soldiers to step
forward and stand between us and the barbarians.

Gen. McCaffrey’s excerpted
classroom response did not answer potential followup questions, e.g.:
Where is the line drawn between proper functions of armed forces and
CIA? Where is the line drawn between the law of war and the criminal
law? The excerpt did not anticipate the Bush administration’s
claim that it has power to designate persons who have “no rights”
under the Constitution, international law or any other source of law.
But it was a more comprehensive strategy statement than the administration
itself has yet provided.

ANTHONY P. X. (TONY) BOTHWELL,
Esq. – Member,
the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Bar of the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Bar of the U.S. District
Court for the Northern District of California, The State Bar of California,
American Bar Assn. (2003 delegate to the International Court of Justice,
The Hague), National Lawyers Guild, International Bar Association,
Southern Poverty Law Center (Leadership Council). Qualified
expert, lawyers' standard of care (Los Angeles County Superior Court).U.S.HolocaustMuseum (Circle of Life); Rotary Club of
Fisherman's Wharf (Vice President, 2006-2007). Georgetown Univ. School of Foreign Service, B.S.F.S.,
International Affairs; Boston Univ. School of Public Communication,
M.S., Journalism; John F. Kennedy Univ. School of Law, J.D.; Golden
Gate Univ. School of Law, LL.M. summa
cum laude, International Legal Studies.Professor of law, John F. Kennedy Univ. School of Law. Who’s Who in the Law; Who's
Who in America; Who's Who in the World.Descendent of John P. Dreibelbus, captain in
the Continental Army under General George Washington.